Fantasy Focus

Well-Grounded

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When searching for potential starting pitching help, I try to avoid win-loss records, and I don't spend too much time looking at ERA as a predictive indicator. Instead, I'll devote more attention to strikeout rate (K/9) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) as primary indicators. It's an approach that has served me well in the past, but unfortunately, it's hardly unique--many others do the same. The result becomes that the pitchers that grade out well there are usually fully priced, either at the draft or in free agent bidding.

Chien-Ming Wang's gem against the A's on Friday night made me look to see if I might be missing out on a cost-efficient way to land effective starting pitching in my leagues. Wang forced 20 groundballs, allowed four flyballs, struck out no one and walked two in eight shutout innings. This was not atypical for Wang, at least in terms of his component stats. He has a 3.13 G/F (groundball/flyball) ratio this year after posting a 2.96 ratio last year, among the top-10 for both years. Similarly, Wang has had low K/9 (3.31 in 2006, 3.64 in 2005) and K/BB (1.13 in 2006, 1.47 in 2005) numbers both years. His ERA has remained essentially the same the last two years, below the league average at 4.04 and 4.02 respectively.

Because of Wang's low strikeout rates, and probably because his risk of injury, he came cheaply in drafts this year, despite his low ERA, low homer rate and high likelihood of getting run support from the Yankee offense. I drafted in eight roto leagues and one Scoresheet League where Wang was part of the player pool, and he was kept in another. Yes, I'm in too many leagues--but it's all for you, the reader. Five of the eight leagues were mixed-league drafts--he went undrafted in three of those leagues (all three had an active player pool of 252 players), once he went 252/345, once he went 286/345. In one mixed league auction (299 active players) he went undrafted. In an 11-team AL-only auction and a 12-team AL-only auction he was a reserve pick and a $1 player respectively. He rated highest in the 12-team AL-only Scoresheet league, getting drafted 154th overall. It's only May, but he's only looking like a bargain so far.

How common is it for pitchers with Wang's component stats to meet with the same sort of roto success? I took a look at the last three completed seasons and looked at qualifying starting pitchers, as sort of a back of the envelope investigation. To qualify, the pitcher had to be among the top 30 in the majors in G/F, have a strikeout rate less than 6.0 K/9IP and a K/BB ratio less than 2/1.

All G/F, K/9 and K/BB stats are from ESPN.com, and the ERA+ stats are from Baseball-Reference.com. ERA+ as computed by Baseball-Reference.com is park-adjusted.

When investigating this subset of pitchers, I was looking for:

Repeatability--Are these pitchers likely to have similar component stats from year-to-year?

Predictability--Can this combination of component stats allow for a reliable ERA projection, at least in comparison with the league average?

These sorts of pitchers tend to repeat their component stats. You'll see a lot of the same names making multiple appearances on the list, and many others who would show up multiple times among the top groundball pitchers. It's on the second point, however, where this study fails. Take a look at Derek Lowe, for example. For all three years, he was among the top 10 pitchers in G/F, but last year cut his walks down enough to avoid making this list. His ERA, both raw and relative to the league, fluctuated wildly. When I started this, I was hoping to find a way to sniff out bargains in the future. It looks like I'll need to keep sniffing.